Jodi Hills

So this is who I am – a writer that paints, a painter that writes…

Category Archives: children


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Note to self.

There is a trend of writing letters to your younger self. And I must admit I’ve given it a little thought, but as I remember back to my first class on perspective  — how the assignment was to draw the hallway in your house — and I thought, how nice, the teacher actually thinks I live in a house… I went home, (because you can have a home that isn’t a house), sat in the apartment kitchen where you couldn’t drink the tap water, looked through the living room and drew the small space between my mother’s bedroom and mine, completely in reverse perspective. I mention it because it occurs to me that this younger self already knew she saw things differently. So it probably won’t come as a surprise that I do the opposite now — it is she writing to me, daily. Each one starts off the same, “Dude…” (she calls me dude, because she was cool like that, and because I know it’s as harsh as she going to get…) “Dude,” she says, “you’ve already learned this…” “But I’m doing it all wrong — backwards,” I tell her. And she replies, a little more gently this time, in my mother’s voice, (because she, my mom, was kind like that) with the same thing my mother said to me when I brought home my incomplete assignment on perspective. I told my mom, “I did the whole thing backwards,” hanging my head. She pulled up my chin and said, “Great!” “Great?????” I questioned. “Sure,” she said, “you’re Ginger Rogers!” I smiled. I was learning perspective after all. 

There will be a mountain of things I have to relearn today, and again tomorrow, but in this moment, l look around, offer up a little kindness, and this dude begins to dance. 

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The Rockies

I thought it was the biggest hill possible. Actually I didn’t give much thought to other ones, this was the one in our yard on Van Dyke Road. By the time I finished bundling — snow pants, extra socks to fit into hand me down boots, hat, mittens, scarf, hooded jacket — I could barely remember where I was headed, let alone get there. A slight push from my mother’s hand, and I was out the door. Walking past the picture window, I looked inside for assurance, and waddled my way to the side of the house, dragging my red plastic sled behind me. It was a quick slope that led to the renter’s door of the basement. If it had been possible to run in this outfit, I would have, but I could merely let myself fall into the aligned plastic rocket. The ride was quick, but spectacular. Worth every bundle. I rolled myself out of the sled and dragged it back up the hill again. And again. Until my socks had worked themselves into a bundle at my toes, my breath had frozen into my woolen scarf, and I could no longer feel my fingers. Returning to the warmth and safety behind the glass window.

I suppose there is no bigger hill than the one you are on. Driving through the Rocky Mountains yesterday, I had no need for bundling, not the outer kind anyway. It was warm in the car. My fingers would not freeze upon the wheel. But I did gather myself in. Collected myself in what I have already climbed. My mother kept a yellow sticky note by her phone that read, “What haven’t you gotten through?” 

Reaching Denver, I smiled. The sun shone as brightly as a yellow note that held. We had once again made it through, and it was spectacular!

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Around every barn. 

I want to hold her – this little girl that sits in front of me. Tiny tears cling to her eyelashes, knowing that if they fall, so will the secret — the one she kept, mostly from herself. One salty drop lands upon her thigh, and she says she had told her mother that she didn’t want to have a babysitter anymore. Not this one anyway. But she couldn’t tell her why. She couldn’t say that this young woman frightened her. Wanted her to do bad things. Dirty things. She couldn’t say that she took her behind the barn, (where nothing good ever happened.) I suppose that’s what they always count on, that you won’t be able to say anything. And what she couldn’t say then, she says to me now. She tells me. And I want to hold this little girl. Pick her up. Wipe away tears and replace them with promises. But she has already grown. She has already peaked only bangs above covers during sleepless nights. She has already learned to pocket the secret and dilute it with morning’s light. Learned to take care of her little sisters. No one else would watch them but her. She has already grown into a woman who carries her own children. Who carries me. 

Maybe there always comes a time when the lines become blurred. For mothers and daughters. Sisters. Friends. When we’re all just little hearted girls, trying to hold on, trying to let go, daring both. Trusting each other with tears and stories. 

I trusted my mother. And she trusted me. It would be easy for the story to end there, but it can’t. I won’t let it. Not for me. Nor you. Not for any little girl, no matter what her age. We must be the sisters who keep them safe. Tuck them in with stories of hope and joy, of kindness and progress and freedom and learning…so heads and hearts remain above covers — all night long, and all the days after. 

I wander in and out, around every barn. I am safe because of her. I reach out my hand, so you can feel the same. 

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To keep our pink ladies dancing.

I used to imagine that the front stoop of my grandma’s house was only there for the family of Hollyhock dolls that grew on either side of the cement steps. I was only allowed to pick a few each season. She showed me how to pluck the flower from the stem, flip it upside down and push an unopened bud through the then top to make a head that rested above the pink flowing dress. And for the rest of the afternoon, this small gathering of elegant ladies danced outside the entrance reserved just for them.

I gave them the voices to compliment each other. “How lovely is your pink dress!” “And yours is beautiful!” I danced them together like my mother once did at the Lakeside Ballroom with her cousin Janet. And the music from the transistor radio scratched in and out as I adjusted the antenna in the summer breeze. The lessons of last summer were forgotten. I had no fear of the wilting dresses. I only played. And played, believing that all beauty on Rueben and Elsie’s farm would ever remain.

I wasn’t wrong. Yes, the flowered dresses lay almost flat by the end of the day, but decades and countries away, the beauty remains. Yesterday, in the French countryside, she showed me the one Hollyhock flower that somehow grew between the century old crack of the house entrance. I wasn’t surprised. I had enough French words to tell her of how I made the pink ladies on my grandma’s stoop. We both smiled and touched the rhythm of her little pink dress.

I wrote in a poem, “This year… let’s love like no lessons have already been learned…” Of course we have to grow and educate and evolve. But some “lessons,” like those that deal with lost love, disappointment, unreached expectations — to keep our pink ladies dancing, we have to let those go. The heart stoops must remain clear and ever hopeful.

Countless things grew on Rueben and Elsie’s farm. Again and again. And the beauty will ever remain. I wake to this morning sun, and keep on dreaming.

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WWED.

It was in the first aisle of Jerry’s Jack and Jill that I got a nose bleed. My grandma, hands already full with a sack of toasted marshmallows, told me to reach into her folded sleeve around her right elbow. Sure enough, there was a Kleenex. It wasn’t long before I needed another. “Check the other arm,” she said. I switched to the opposite side of the cart, reached into her folded left sleeve, and pulled out another. In aisle three, even after the bleeding had stopped and the marshmallows were nearly gone, I wanted to see how far this went — if Grandma Elsie was actually some sort of magician. “I think I need another one,” I said. “Check my right bra strap,” she said quite confidently. And just like a rabbit from a hat, I pulled out another Kleenex. 

And it was magic — the ease with which she could fix any situation. How I counted on it! I suppose we all did. But I never saw the weight of it — the things she carried. How lightly she skirted through the aisles. And certainly things had to bother her – she was a woman of this world, and no one escapes, but still she never weighed upon, but lifted up. 

I think about it now. Am I traveling lightly? What is it I’m choosing to carry? The solution, or the burden? I ponder, WWED? (What would Elsie do?) I smile, and I choose the lightness of magic, the lightness of joy, wearing my heart on my sleeve, and sometimes under my bra strap. 

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On with the lesson.

He sat next to me in kindergarten, where our only source of hierarchy came from the size of our Crayola crayons box. My mom couldn’t afford the largest, but I did have a good solid 24 pack. A few in class had the coveted 64 with the sharpener included, but not many. He pulled his tiny 9 pack from inside of his desk. He barely made a scribble during the allotted coloring time. At first I thought it was because he didn’t have that much to choose from, so I offered to share. He declined. And he didn’t seem embarrassed, he just didn’t seem to care. This was most surprising! It was my favorite time of day. To be set free. To color. To create. Then hang it on the wall! Wow!  His lack of enthusiasm was doubled down with the use of only the color brown. And I must admit that there was probably some judgement in my second offer of crayon sharing, more of a “Are you sure you don’t want to try some of my crayons?” He shrugged them away. 

One day he was called out of class for a few tests. We all whispered in wonder. Well, not wonder really, but confirmation that he must indeed be stupid, like we thought. He came back to the classroom all smiles. He was colorblind. We all welcomed the diagnosis. Mrs. Strand hung his brown paper on the wall, and we went on with the lesson. 

It’s hard to see things the way other people see them. And I am just as guilty. I ask again and again, how can they not see it???? I suppose sometimes it’s so clear that it’s invisible. I would like to think we have learned and grown since the age of five, but I’m not always so sure. 

Facing the same direction, I guess we will always see things differently. And we will rarely receive the reasons why. We will be asked again and again to get from desk to wall without diagnosis, but only pure understanding. We must sit in our differences and try to learn.

The sun comes up. We go on with the lesson. 

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The shape of Minnesota.

If you made a line of every bike ride. Every walk on gravel. Every stroke in one of 10,000 lakes. And if you swept that line through golden fields, and trudged it through snow that spilled into boots. Then climbed it through grades and classrooms. Danced in through gymnasiums. Drove it through the DMV. Set it into the sky and released it to an open door. That line would form the shape of Minnesota.

I learned pretty early on, what could be taken away, and what couldn’t. There is no physical home for me to go to in my birthplace. No scratches of growth marked on a wall. No cedar chests. Gravel driveways have been paved. Empty lots over-filled. Schools torn down. But I am not sad. Everything that has given me form remains. My heart will ever know the way. 

My friend from the first grade, and friend still, gave me a Minnesota cookie cutter for Christmas. Yesterday, here in France, with the spring of a schoolgirl, I rolled the sweet dough and cut out the shape of my heart. 

I am part of the roads that lead to and from here,

the neighbors near and far, all 

under one sky, trying to get to their own place 

of unconditional, outstretched arms, 

I am part of it all…

and I am home.

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Carried.

It was the heaviest book I bought in college — The Riverside Shakespeare. Weighing in at about 6 pounds, it would have been a lot to carry across campus for any English major, but for me, who spent the majority of my college years slinged and on crutches, it was extraordinary. Yet, I loaded it, joyfully, in my backpack, and hopped on one foot from M5, our fifth floor walk-up dorm apartment, across the quad to the humanities building, sometimes over ice and snow. I never fell. You could argue that the weight of the 2000 pages kept me stable, glued to the ground, but I will tell you it was most probably the strength of the words that held me. Still do. 

When moving to France, I let go of most possessions. And it wasn’t that hard. Furniture and shoes. Clothing and decorations. Dishes and beds. Table and tv. Trading it all in for love was an easy decision. I kept personal items. Paintings mostly, and a few books. It might surprise you, that this heaviest of books made the trip. Shakespeare rests on my shelf. Do I love the book? Yes. Do I love the words, the poems, the plays? Of course. But maybe most of all, I know that you can’t let go of what got you here — what held you, carried you, gave you strength. I suppose that’s why I have this heaviest of books beside me still. It’s why I write of my mother, my grandparents, my teachers and friends. I know what brought me here. What keeps me upright to this very day. 

Walking yesterday, I was listening to a podcast of Dame Judi Dench. She rattled off the words written by Shakespeare, and they lifted me over rock and trail. The announcer was so surprised that she still had all of these words at the ready. I wasn’t. The heart takes on the carry, and allows the journey, still. 

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As I come clean.

I suppose it was at my grandparent’s house that I first learned to come in clean. Winter snow or summer dirt was wiped from shoes in the entryway before climbing the couple of steps into the kitchen where grandma wiped her floured hands inside of her apron pockets and brought you in for a loving belly hug. After the apron imprinted your cheek, there was nothing to do but come directly with the truth. The truth of what you had been doing outside. What you touched that maybe you were told not to touch, like the electric fence, or a baby bird from a fallen nest. Maybe it felt safe, because it had been proven safe, time and time again, with wiped shoes and warmed cheeks…so we told all, and she loved us still. 

If I come to you with that same truth today, I will tell you that I have battled it throughout the years — love and trust. Maybe we all do. But it has yet to change. The only way any of it seems to work is when I come in clean. When I come clean. When I tell you my truth, and accept the same from you. It’s not as complicated as I, we, often like to make it. 

I grab the straw broom from the corner and smile. It has never needed instructions. Nor does my heart — its screen door swings open, and I dare it all again. Safe. Welcomed in the loving arms of home. 

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A Schwan’s delivery.

It was hard to believe that something so delicious could make me ill. But it was evident after only a few tries, I couldn’t eat ice cream. Somehow still, I found it very exciting when the pale yellow blur of the Schwan’s ice cream delivery truck drove toward my grandma’s house. I began running up the gravel, hands waving in air, directing him into the driveway. I knew full well that my grandma’s love of root beer floats would never allow her to miss a delivery. I hopped and skipped and ran with the truck to the house. Uniformed and certain, he jumped the steps and went to the back of the truck. “You’re Elsie’s granddaughter?” “Oh, yes!” I said proudly. I could tell by the smiling way he said her name that he liked her. He unloaded two of the giant tubs as my grandma came out the screen door. Her hands ever floured or wet, or both, she wiped them on her apron before signing for our haul of vanilla. 

How wonderful, I thought, to deliver ice cream. Everyone must be so happy to see you. I was, and I didn’t even eat it. The only other delivery person that I knew was my Uncle Mike, who drove a beer truck in the Twin Cities. I asked him if people jumped up and down when he arrived. He looked confused. Like I do with the Schwan’s truck, I explained. Not so much, he said. Maybe you should paint your truck yellow, I said. He smiled. 

Surely it has to be taught. There must have been a million things my grandma delighted over with me. Things she had no interest in. How else would I have known, known this joy of feeling good for others. I loved art and clothes and drawing and crayons and “Look, look what I made! It’s flowers glued to a scrap of bark! Look!” And my grandma showed all of her teeth in love. An ear to ear joy. This is the only explanation I have for being happy, truly happy, to celebrate a Schwan’s delivery, not for me, but for her!

Joy is not owned. It is passed and given away freely. It is run along beside. A yellow blur of others. The day is pulling toward the driveway. I raise my hands in the air and skip to whatever joy it may bring. 

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